Strange curved things fly through the air.
There's an almost fabled hunger in the
way Joanne speaks - and in the things
she speaks of.
The distressed look - that would
be the look of one who knows. One who
saw - and knows. Rare rare rare.
There's always going to be more terror than
the world has a use for.
"these are extraordinary times"
so we can do whatever we want ha ha
The world is just an excuse for tomorrow. (Ha ha.)
Joanne contrasts that with this
now the evening sky
looks pretty clear
that
was a history
just happened
The history preferred (is it preferred? - or the only
available history?) is the history of this moment.
Though it gets expressed (language) as that.
At least I enumerate with outrage
At least I must articulate
At least I know what's wrong
Perhaps the history of the world is just the history of
(all of) those wrongs. The available history. To right
the past is to write it. To right the past (is it possible?)
is to write it.
We live at the moment in a history of cul de sacs - that's
what she seems to be saying - and that there are some
within others - and that there's (apparently?) no way out
of a single one of them. But to think our way out of
them - that might work / that might be something (that
would work).
What cannot be taken for granted (any more) has to be
apostrophized (as it were)-
'leaders'
'free' world
'Freedom'
'You' my government
or let nature / 'take its course'
Think of the myth of a place / 'conducive to creativity'
'life'
What can't (can no longer) be spoken (or even spoken to) can
only be spoken of. Has the language failed us?
But still there is room for (her) gladness -
It's winter in California
with a light blonde spring
attraction of blossom
and the self-reminder (too) -
Oh stop me from going on
like this when I wanted to give
Homage to the Air
that lies so still on this day
and publicly unites
with life's common breathing
like rain
which can't be owned
yet is as original as the face
of the body politic
being born
Sadly - the rain can (can (the rain can)) be owned -
as it is all over India (see Arundhati Roy's essays on same)
(and elsewhere too) (and more of everywhere to come) -
and that is a lesson that we're beginning to learn. We have to
remember that rain (too) touches the ground.
What cannot be taken away from us is us. But lately even that
has been taken away from us. So who is it that thinks they
vote? - so who is it that thinks they think (anymore)?
Joanne speaks this pathological ruin. Not over it or through it or
about it - she speaks it (so that it can have its own obverse (can
it be reversed?) voice). No wonder we all be damned.
If thinking and writing and being were one - would things
("things") be any better. I think. Unity unites. But so few of
us think so. There's so little to go on - (in that way / in any other).
We have to do things to make things change - that seems
obvious. But change doesn't seem any longer to be a thing we can
do. So where does that leave us? We might as well sit down - (same
as it ever was / same as it ever was).
If everything is so fucking empty why does it hurt so
much?! - that's what everybody wants to know. Don't-know.
There are no answers - but the concern to say so - that lingers.